Selene wrote:That some stories can be and are faked is no surprise, but like with the Dino 'Hoax' that doesn't mean the absolutism of getting to everything is -therefore- fake(d) is not a step a critical thinker imho would make.

I completely agree, but if you look what I wrote you see that you are making a straw man argument.Your position "nuclear energy is real" is just as absolutist and not a skeptical position. Because your evidence is not conclusive.You keep forgetting that the burden of proof lies in the one that makes the claim, regardless if the claim is "it is all faked" or "it is all real". My position is: maybe nuclear energy does exist and maybe not, I will look at the evidence. So let's start by taking a look at yours:

Selene wrote:Nuclear weapons (top secret, no checks by the general audience possible, motive for staging vs real weapons) are completely different from nuclear energy. Thousands of people work in that field, many reactors in operation worldwide

Are you implying that makes it impossible to be a hoax? How many people work in the AIDS "field"? or the vaccine "field"?

Selene wrote:and the million dollar question is; if nuclear reactors were definitely a hoax, then what is that amazing energy source that brings humanity aaaallll those megawatts in energy??? That would be an earth shaking discovery, as coal or geothermal would struggle to produce all that energy in such a small area...

What's your evidence that power is produced there? There are other hypotheses, like the dumpload theory, that they use excess electricity produced elsewhere. The people operating it don't even have to know that. Check it out, here is just one of their arguments: *There appear to be no parts of the world exclusively supplied by nuclear power: the EIA state no such place exists.

Selene wrote:I've visited Chernobyl by the way. A really interesting yet relatively uncommon tourist destination. You get an eerie feeling when walking around in Pripyat and have a view on the reactor. The guide showed us with a geiger counter that the grass and plants gave off much more radiation than the concrete we were allowed to walk on. So seeing it with my own eyes, something which is impossible with nuclear bombs, the media hoaxes or NASA Disney stories.

So your eerie feeling and the numbers you watched on somebodies Geiger counter are your evidence? There are other explanations for your observations. And even if there was radioactivity all over the place, this doesn't prove that nuclear energy is real.

Selene wrote:Radioactive minerals and isotopes are also the basis for a lot of technology. They are definitely real. So from there to energy is a logical step.

No it is not a logical step. You would have to assume some kind of chain reaction.

Selene wrote:For weaponry the motive "why make it if you can fake it" makes much more sense....

The ultimate motive for nuclear weapons is to scare the population imho. Nuclear power could have the same motive. Do you think the 500.000 people living in Antwerp, our 2nd biggest city worry about nuclear bombs? Or about the nuclear reactor 16 km from the center of the city, that was possibly sabotaged by terrorists?

Selene wrote:Why do I hope it's real? Because it's a very efficient energy source and because I trust my own crtitical eyes. That some stories can be and are faked is no surprise, but like with the Dino 'Hoax' that doesn't mean the absolutism of getting to everything is -therefore- fake(d) is not a step a critical thinker imho would make.

So you are willing to admit that some nuclear incidents may be hoaxed? Let's start from there. The nuclear incidents that I talk about lead to the closure of a reactor for some period of time. For example: because of the alleged terrorist sabotage, Doel 4 had to be closed for 4 months. If the reactor is producing as much electricity as they claim, they have to produce 1000 MW of electricity to replace it. Likely from an old inefficient plant on fossil fuel. If it was efficient it would already have been producing. Is it reasonable to believe they would use this in a hoax? That would make this the most expensive hoax ever! Other hoaxes are often cheap and even generate money.

So here is my logicA ) A nuclear reactor is shut down because of a hoaxB ) This nuclear reactor reactor produces lots of cheap electricityC ) The cost of shutting down a nuclear reactor with the assumed production extremely outweighs the benefitsD ) Hoaxes are never that expensiveThe conclusion from A, B and C opposes D. So at least one of the premises must be wrong.

Maybe B is wrong and there are at least some nuclear reactors that are fake.

Obscure Particle Could Keep Iran Honest on Its Nuclear Deal - Sophia Chen (July 23, 2015)Last week, Iran made a deal with five other world powers about the future of its nuclear programs. But as President Obama made clear in his announcement of the deal, this agreement isn’t based on trust: It’ll be based on cold, hard evidence.

-Cold, hard nuclear evidence? Ok I’m hooked.

In order to hold Iran accountable, the International Atomic Energy Agency—the global nuclear weapons watchdog—has to be able to accurately monitor Iranian nuclear power reactors to track how much nuclear weapon-grade uranium and plutonium they have. But current techniques are far from foolproof. Right now, IAEA inspectors literally seal up equipment with tape and tag it with some sort of label. The idea is, anyone who tries to illicitly remove plutonium will disrupt the seal. Also, they might sample dust from near the reactor and take it to a lab to process.

So naturally, the inspectors would rather do all this remotely. But that’s a science-trick no one quite knows how to pull off just yet….But scientists are working on another possibility: hunting for antineutrinos, a subatomic particle released during fission.

-So how does one go about ‘hunting for antineutrinos’?Because antineutrinos can go right through reactor walls—they’re almost massless and travel nearly the speed of light—an antineutrino detector could do the job “right in the parking lot next to the reactor,” says Patrick Huber, a Virginia Tech physicist who is leading development of a detector.

Sadly, detecting antineutrinos isn’t easy. If you shot antineutrinos—or their counterparts, neutrinos (made of matter as opposed to antimatter)1—through 6 trillion miles of lead shielding [ ], half of them would pass right through, like ghosts. “Antineutrinos really are very bashful particles and almost never interact,” says Thomas Shea…

-Enrico Fermi and Wolfgang Pauli’s prediction of the existence of the "neutrino" at the 1933 Solvay Conference was subsequently ‘verified’ in 1956, 1962 and 2000. In fact, Quantum theorists have had a miraculous track record for ‘discovering/detecting’ previously theorized sub-atomic particles. Anyhow, we know antineutrinos must exist because for every neutrino there’s an equal & opposite antineutrino (or something like that) so detecting them is only a matter of time (and money of course).

Luckily, the average nuclear reactor emits more than 1 hundred million million million million (10^26) antineutrinos a day. So a detector near a reactor can still pick them up. It’s portability that’s the real trick. “Normally, antineutrino detectors weigh thousands of tons,” Huber says. “They’re usually size of a house.” His detector, by comparison, is small enough to fit on the back of a truck—20 feet long, and weighing about 20 tons. “Antineutrino detectors can’t get much smaller than that,” Huber says.

-I’m sure some wiz(ard) will eventually develop an Apple Antineutrino App.

Now, here’s the annoying part: The team is still testing its detector on small, research-sized reactors. And the signal’s still noisy–cosmic rays set off the detector, too. It’ll be years before they can deliver a working version to the IAEA.

-Of course, we should expect many cost overruns & character building setbacks.

For sure, some physicists aren’t convinced that antineutrino detectors will ever be useful beyond the lab. “I’m never that optimistic about antineutrino detection, because I know how hard it is,” says Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, a physicist at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. But that doesn’t mean trying to build one wouldn’t have benefits. “I see it as a way of building collaboration between different countries,” says Dalnoki-Veress. “For Iran, collaborating on antineutrino technology could link them back into the world. It’s an opportunity to learn from European and US scientists’ experimental techniques.”

-Ah, yes! The perception of building scientific bridges across national/religious divides in order to save humanity from (perceived) grave danger(s) is all that really matters.

Indeed, Tehran hosted an international conference on neutrinos and antineutrinos in 2012. So maybe they’re open to collaboration. “I don’t think the technology is there yet, but maybe Iranians and other scientists can come up with solutions together,” says Dalnoki-Veress. Antineutrino nerds of the world, unite.

Seneca wrote:Your position "nuclear energy is real" is just as absolutist and not a skeptical position. Because your evidence is not conclusive.

That depends on how you define "nuclear energy is real". If you refer to:1 - the technology to produce nuclear energy is real - I'd say "probably yes"2 - all nuclear energy is real - it is indeed an abolutist claim which would be foolish without knowing the details of each reactor

What's your evidence that power is produced there? There are other hypotheses, like the dumpload theory, that they use excess electricity produced elsewhere.

I don't have first-hand evidence, unfortunately. All we rely on are people who work there and publish about it. Can that be rigged? Of course. Is the probability that all is rigged and all are liars substantial enough to think it is all faked? I don't know, but I have my doubts about that.

So your eerie feeling and the numbers you watched on somebodies Geiger counter are your evidence?

No, they are my description of an experience. For evidence I need more, of course.

There are other explanations for your observations.

There are.

And even if there was radioactivity all over the place, this doesn't prove that nuclear energy is real.

True.

No it is not a logical step. You would have to assume some kind of chain reaction.

Yup. Do they exist? I haven't seen them with my own eyes, no.

The ultimate motive for nuclear weapons is to scare the population imho. Nuclear power could have the same motive. Do you think the 500.000 people living in Antwerp, our 2nd biggest city worry about nuclear bombs? Or about the nuclear reactor 16 km from the center of the city, that was possibly sabotaged by terrorists?

Scary indeed, but not only scary, yet also beneficial for our energy needs. For weaponry I don't see that combination; it's scaring only.

So here is my logicA ) A nuclear reactor is shut down because of a hoaxB ) This nuclear reactor reactor produces lots of cheap electricityC ) The cost of shutting down a nuclear reactor with the assumed production extremely outweighs the benefitsD ) Hoaxes are never that expensiveThe conclusion from A, B and C opposes D. So at least one of the premises must be wrong.

Maybe B is wrong and there are at least some nuclear reactors that are fake.

Efficient logic, I don't know if it is enough.

And it comes back to the first point mentioned; if the technology is real, you could have 99 out of 100 fake reactors, but that still doesn't make that one real (working with the real technology) reactor also fake.

Lawmakers Wednesday pushed the Obama administration to act against Iran's test of a new-generation missile that has fueled fears it may be able to defeat Israel's anti-missile defenses.

-Holy Prometheus, Batman!

The missile, dubbed "Emad," or "Pillar," has an estimated range of 900 milles [sic] to 1,100 miles, which is enough to reach Israel, and a maneuverable warhead to improve accuracy and complicate anti-missile defenses. Officials and experts are concerned that any breach by Iran of its obligations under the nuclear agreement, combined with further development of its missile program, would give the theocracy in Tehran a nuclear strike capability against the Jewish state, which it has vowed to destroy.

From theocracy to scientocracy via sci-fi shall be the method of choice!

Taking a page out of the 'Austin Powers' global dominion playbook,' the Iranian Defense Ministry:

… on Wednesday unveiled a deep underground bunker packed with missiles at an unknown location and told state television they would soon be replaced by more advanced long-range missiles.

"As of next year, a new and advanced generation of long-range liquid and solid fuel missiles will replace the current products," Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' Aerospace Division, was quoted as saying.

I’m posting this article to demonstrate the absurdity of the perpetual Israel-Iran fear porn.

Yet Another Estimate of When Iran Will Have the BombJanuary 28th, 2013Kevin Jon Heller

McClatchy reports that Israel now believes Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015 or 2016. That is progress of a sort; Netanyahu had previously been claiming that Iran would have the bomb no later than late summer 2013 — around six months from now. But Israel is still insisting that Iran is only two or three years away from nuclear capability, so I think it is useful to recall and update the timeline I mentioned early last year of breathless Israeli and Western claims about Iran’s nuclear program:

1984: West German intelligence sources claim that Iran’s production of a bomb “is entering its final stages.” US Senator Alan Cranston claims Iran is seven years away from making a weapon.

1992: Israeli parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu tells the Knesset that Iran is 3 to 5 years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

1995: The New York Times reports that US and Israeli officials fear “Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than previously thought” – less than five years away. Netanyahu claims the time frame is three to five years.

1996: Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres claims Iran will have nuclear weapons in four years.

1998: Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claims Iran could build an ICBM capable of reaching the US within five years.

1999: An Israeli military official claims that Iran will have a nuclear weapon within five years.

2001: The Israeli Minister of Defence claims that Iran will be ready to launch a nuclear weapon in less than four years.

2002: The CIA warns that the danger of nuclear weapons from Iran is higher than during the Cold War, because its missile capability has grown more quickly than expected since 2000 – putting it on par with North Korea.

2003: A high-ranking Israeli military officer tells the Knesset that Iran will have the bomb by 2005 — 17 months away.

2006: A State Department official claims that Iran may be capable of building a nuclear weapon in 16 days.

2008: An Israeli general tells the Cabinet that Iran is “half-way” to enriching enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon and will have a working weapon no later than the end of 2010.

I don't know if anyone else picked the following up. I Googled whether the Korean 'hydrogen' bomb was a fake and came up with this little gem.

It's from U.S. News. and in the MSN (main sewer news).

It seems pretty certain that the 'powers who shouldn't be', know exactly how these tests are created.

Here is a quote from the article:

Quote: North Korea simply patched together pieces of video from all the failed tests, pretended the launch actually worked, spliced in some old SCUD missile footage to cover over the catastrophic failures, created one composite video purporting to show that the test worked, and then released it to global media who all covered it somewhat breathlessly during the slow holiday news period. End quote.

sharpstuff wrote:I don't know if anyone else picked the following up. I Googled whether the Korean 'hydrogen' bomb was a fake and came up with this little gem.

It's from U.S. News. and in the MSN (main sewer news).

It seems pretty certain that the 'powers who shouldn't be', know exactly how these tests are created.

Here is a quote from the article:

Quote: North Korea simply patched together pieces of video from all the failed tests, pretended the launch actually worked, spliced in some old SCUD missile footage to cover over the catastrophic failures, created one composite video purporting to show that the test worked, and then released it to global media who all covered it somewhat breathlessly during the slow holiday news period. End quote.

This adds another dimension to the purpose of North Korea that had not occurred to me until now.

When I was much younger I was taught in school about Pravda and Tass, the then media of the Soviet Union and how they printed the most outrageous propaganda. Things such as how the US had been involved in over a hundred wars, when we all knew for a fact it was only WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Of course, it was true that the US had been involved in every skirmish imaginable, but the takeaway was that only the commies would stoop to such tactics as propagandizing its citizens with exaggerations of western imperialism.

Now of course, we can rest assured that only some backwater regressive state like North Korea would stoop to faking nuclear tests.

Selene on September 23rd, 2015, 1:31 pm; "The guide showed us with a geiger counter that the grass and plants gave off much more radiation than the concrete we were allowed to walk on" You are describing a hand held gas sniffer, have used one, there is one in 9/11 Naudet's film, the firefighter checking "gas leak". This one in Pripyat was probably set to detect oxygen by the sounds of it (the stuff plants exhale). Here's one that detects oxygen at .1% min. To make one "go off" you simply calibrate it to ambient air, oxygen and carbon dioxide, maybe ozone and methane too....why not...then when you go near plants, animals or even rotting plants it will beep whenever it finds any concentration of potentially any gas(ozone for electronics, arcing creates ozone). A clever person would send it off to the shop for a refit; mold, print or machine a new casing and repaint it to make it look authentic. A breathalyzer is a sniffer (insert Russian joke here), and a fart can set one off if you want it to. Can also detect volatile organic compounds (voc's), the main source being plants, the lesser being animals, mold, fungi. When you smell offensive plant smells, it is usually voc's. Put titanium dioxide on anything and throw in sunlight and you got ozone. Get it? Here are two examples, you can get whatever sniffer for whatever gas you require. https://www.indsci.com/products/multi-g ... /ventisLS/http://www.rkiinstruments.com/pages/gx6000.htm

"I will not claim that this science phobia that we see is entirely due to textbooks, because there's a lot more to education than just textbooks. It's part of a national culture. And certainly we do not have a national culture that values science. We do not have science programs on television [i.e. Neil deAss & Bill Nye type Ψ-fotainment]. We have a lot of political entertainment, to be sure, but not very much on science at all. We cannot differentiate, for the most part, between the path-breaking work done by Abdus Salam and the copy cat, reverse engineering done by the bomb makers [That’s right! The Pakistani psy-god never got the credit he deserved for his 'path-breaking' invisi-ball discoveries. What an outrage.]. And, frankly, science is not considered either by students or their parents. So one should not be surprised, therefore, that most textbooks written in Pakistan by Pakistani authors are just not worth reading, and that they have seriously impacted upon students' understanding of the subject." - Pervez Hoodbhoyhttp://disquietreservations.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/us-trained-pakistani-scientist-pervez.html

I feel so bad for those poor backward Pakistani kids. They should burn those books written in Pakistan by Pakistani authors. We need to raise awareness (and donations of course). It’s time to speak truth to power. Those kids are in desperate need of western/modern science books. How else are we going to civilize those barbarians and end the war of terrorism?

Pervez Hoodbhoy

Hoodbhoy continued his research in doctoral studies in physics at the MIT, and was awarded PhD in Nuclear physics in 1978.[23] In the United States, his collaboration took place with the scientists who participated in well known Manhattan Project in the 1940s, who subsequently influenced in his philosophy.[23] Hoodbhoy remained a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Washington, for a short time.[22] In 1973, Hoodbhoy joined the Institute of Physics of the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Hoodbhoy

Abdus Salam

Salam was responsible not only for contributing to major developments in theoretical and particle physics, but also for promoting the broadening and deepening of high calibre scientific research in his country.[7] He was the founding director of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), and responsible for the establishment of the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).[8] As Science Advisor, Salam played an integral role in Pakistan's development of the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and may have contributed as well to development of atomic bomb project of Pakistan in 1972;[9] for this, he is viewed as the "scientific father"[3][10] of this programme.[11][12][13] In 1974, Abdus Salam departed from his country, in protest, after the Pakistan Parliament passed a controversial parliamentary bill declaring the Ahmadiyya Community as not-Islamic. In 1998, following the country's nuclear tests, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp, as a part of "Scientists of Pakistan", to honour the services of Salam.

Originally, my interest was in the fact that the notion of so-called nuclear detonations are invariably measured in megatons of TNT(Trinitrotoluene).

Question: Why is this?

However, this recent event took place, which I thought was interesting.

My cousin on my mother's side, is my senior by 14 years. He was always interested in radio (the valve kind) and always an enigmatic person since I rarely saw him. However, he graduated in science and eventually worked for A.W.R.E at Foulness Island near Southend-on-Sea, Essex, U.K..

Here we are talking about the 1950's.

A.W.R.E was the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment and they had many sites around the U.K.

As far as I knew in my childhood, my cousin had gone to Canada and Australia a couple of times, where he was 'involved' in the various nuclear tests performed there.

It was only recently, also, that my cousin (who is now in his 80's) happened to mention Ripple Rock since he had been writing a paper about his experiences.

So being a researcher, I looked up Ripple Rock, hence the link at the top of the page. Please view at least some of it before continuing.

I have to say that my cousin would have had to sign the U.K. Official Secrets Act which precludes one (on pain of some considerable suffering) of divulging 'secrets' from a presumably 'democratic' 'government', so he really can’t say too much.

As an aside, I myself have had to sign the above document O.S.A.) when I worked for the Science Research Council in 1967.

Cousin G. was present at the Ripple Rock explosion ( apparently the largest non-nulear explosion in history). I was able to determine that the A.W.R.E.'s involvement was mainly (purely?) of a seismological nature. In fact, so far as I can determine, the site at Foulness U.K. (where cousin G. was based) was of a seismological nature making hyper-sensitive equipment. They could/can (apparently) monitor the footsteps of a cat from some distance.

Why would they be interested in measuring blasts of conventional explosives?

Apparently, to be able to detect atomic explosions from naughty persons from countries they don’t like. That would be the ‘official’ story.

When, in another very recent call from my cousin, I tried to glean a few more details regarding his two trips to Woomera (in Southern Australia) in the 1950's, it was similarly to record details of the blast size of the 'atomic' explosions.

Obviously not privvy to the elements of the programme, such as those of my cousin's disposition would not have known the real purpose of their visit to the 'test' grounds.

I also have asked myself why they measure 'nuclear' blasts in terms of TNT tonnage (of whatever flavour). They 'know' the effect of TNT blasts but not those of a 'nuclear' blast but need to sound impressive?

I rather liked this explanation as to why they measure explosion in tons of TNT.

Interesting stuff! I am puzzled as to why they went down the 'explosives' route when there are methods of dredging that could have been used especially with the depths relatively small.I would think the use of 'TNT' as a unit of measurement is no different [in concept] to the use of BHP for cars/engines etc.